Manufacturing Consent By William Chomsky

In Manufacturing Consent, Noam Chomsky, a renowned cognitive scientist, analyzes the propagandistic techniques that mass media outlets use to coerce the populace of a country into the endless cycle of consumption. Chomsky states that, “The primary function of mass media in the United States is to mobilize public support for special interests that dominate the government and the private sector” (Chomsky). Chomsky explains that the function of mass media propaganda is to secure the welfare of certain groups by using certain strategies that manipulate the populace. Mass media propaganda functions by having mass media outlets determine, select, shape, control, and restrict news in order to serve the interest of dominant elite groups in society
Ewen in Captains of Consciousness explains how the advertising business has developed in conjunction with the mass media business and how both reflect the common interest of the corporation and other elitist groups. Ewen clarifies, “ The mass-produced goods of the marketplace were conceived of as providing an ideology of “change’ neutralized to the extent that it would be unable to effect significant alteration in the relationship between individuals and the corporate structure” (Ewen 85). This definition of “philosophy of futility” describes how advertisers are able to sell their products by emphasizing how the products will greatly improve the lives of the consumer. Ewen explains how corporations influence the populace to buy certain products by classically conditioning the public to believe that certain products lead to success. Haruki Murakami in his novel, A Wild Sheep Chase, advocates that the Japanese public must break away from the cycle of consumerism to develop a true identity by providing examples of commonly used propagandistic strategies, selection of topic and emphasis, and providing examples of the consequences of living in a society controlled by
Chomsky explains that emphasis is the technique of pairing interesting and serious news with news that is not as important, which hinders the importance of the more important news placing less emphasis on it (Chomsky). Emphasis is used to distract the public from the significant news that could harm the corporation by pairing important stories with trivial ones. The narrator in A Wild Sheep Chase exhibits the consequence of the usage of this technique when he reads his local newspaper, “ I went back to the evening paper . . . Here a coup d’état, there a film actor dying, elsewhere a cat who does tricks – nothing much related to me” (Murakami 158). The news outlet pairs the coup d’état with other marginal news articles hindering the importance of the coup d’état. By pairing all these new pieces together, the narrator does not see the coup d’état as important and significant to society. Corporations influence mass media outlets to use this technique by again threatening their main income source, advertising. Corporations resort to the usage of this technique to ensure that public news, that cannot be hid and might hurt profits, is not too alarming to the reader. While Ewen Chomsky explains what this propagandist technique is and how it is used, Murakami